What is the Vault plugin
Imagine Vault as a translator or bridge for your Minecraft server. It doesn't add visible gameplay features like weapons, custom monsters or minigames. Instead it works behind the scenes to help all your other plugins talk to each other safely and smoothly. Nowadays it's a must have plugin. Why?
As previously mentioned it's a bridge for your Minecraft server, but in what way? Well, it's a well established API for Permission Management, Economies and Chat, as such it creates a near-perfect ecosystem for your server, 99% of plugins which provide such features rely on its API to ensure compatibility.
Plugins such as EssentialsX, LuckPerms & many many more make use of it as a soft-dependency, and as such, the market follows their lead.
What issues does it solve
It centralizes everything, view it from a plugin developer's standpoint, he has to make a plugin which relies on permissions and economy, on the plugin market there are lots of plugins which do that, but without Vault, they'd have to implement a hook for every and each plugin to ensure a large compatibility coverage. With Vault, he just hooks into Vault, and the other plugins interface to it as well, making it a common link for every/most plugins. This works very well between economy provider plugins (e.g. EssentialsX) and shop plugins (ShopGUI+ and EconomyShopGUI), allowing them to talk to each other swiftly.
Something to highlight about it
Vault hasn't been updated since 2020, some could argue that it's outdated, but there's a reason on why it hasn't been updated for so long: it simply works, so far it has caused no issues in these last 6 years, proving its resiliency and making it one of the core plugins when making a server, yet there are projects out there which forked it (took it and added or improved various features), for example VaultUnlocked which is slowly being popularized, slowly making it a relatively big project. Does this mean you should switch to VaultUnlocked? Well, not really, although all plugins relying on Vault work with VaultUnlocked as well, most of them (if not explicitly stated) have no use of its additions, which may be what's slowing down its pace, additionally Vault has been in a strong position having no major issues in the last 6 years, making it easily a safe choice for server owners and developers.
How to install it on your server
Download the jar from its official sources such as Bukkit or SpigotMC, after downloading it, head to your server's files on the panel
Open the plugins folder and upload it there, and you're finished!
Conclusions
Vault is a must have plugin in your server, it brings essential features such as Permission Management and Economy handling, although it hasn't been updated in 6 years, such feat underlines its stability and resilience making it a safe choice for your server, yet if you're looking for some innovation, you may want to consider VaultUnlocked with its extra features, which are limited to a small set of plugins.
FAQ:
Why does it seem to not be working?
Vault by itself does nothing, to actually make use of it you'd need a Permission Ecosystem (Permission Manager + Plugins which provide permissions), an Economy Ecosystem (Economy provider + Shops/Auctions/Anything which relies on an economy).
